


just for now

by woozi



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Christmas Tree Decorating, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Secret Crush, brunette hide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:13:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8893798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woozi/pseuds/woozi
Summary: A cold breeze hits Kaneki in the face as Hide strolls casually into Anteiku, and Kaneki does a double take.“You-““My hair,” Hide flashes a grin as he slides into the seat across from Kaneki’s, “I thought I needed a change.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to be a short little drabble but it got REALLY LONG sorry

A cold breeze hits Kaneki in the face as Hide strolls casually into Anteiku, and Kaneki does a double take.

“You-“

“My hair,” Hide flashes a grin as he slides into the seat across from Kaneki’s, “I thought I needed a change.”

Kaneki stares, unabashedly. Hide’s once bright blond hair was now a jet black, the silk looking strands unrecognizable from the old bleach- damaged locks. He hasn’t seen his friend with black hair since probably middle school.

He looks really _good._

Kaneki’s had a nagging little crush on Hide for a while now, and although it wasn’t too much of a problem since he was completely happy with just being best-friends, it was moments like these were Kaneki wanted to say he was able to land _that_. Hide looks even more handsome with dark hair, and Kaneki felt like he might explode.

“Wow,” Kaneki finally tears his eyes away, “I mean, it looks good.”

“You think? The lady did this conditioning treatment to make my hair seem less dead. I can’t stop touching it!” Hide proves his point by running his hands through his hair, the strands immediately falling back into place. Then he tilts his head down, inching towards Kaneki as an offer.

Kaneki tries not to be too stiff as he feels through his ( _really soft really nice_ ) hair.  Wow, that hairdresser definitely proved magic is real.

“You didn’t even tell me! This is like a life milestone.” Kaneki whines, forcing his hand off of Hide’s scalp as straightens back up.

“I wanted to surprise you. It would be no fun if you knew.” Hide states like it’s obvious, flicking his fringe back into place. It was down, no products or anything in it like he usually used to keep it out of his face. Admittedly, it looked kind of crazy before just because his hair was so dead that it didn’t work with gel or anything, but Hide stayed loyal to it. Kaneki wanted to see it styled up; he’d probably look really good.

“It’s different. But a good different,” Kaneki tells him, “Maybe I should bleach my hair. Opposites.”

Hide looks at him like he just committed a mortal sin right in front of him. “No. You can’t. Did you even look at my hair these past seven years? Don’t ruin your pretty hair!” He cried.

Kaneki flushes a little – Hide thought his hair was pretty? He looks down to stare into his coffee. It was hot in Anteiku with all the people – rush hour and all; he could play off the pink tint to his cheeks on that.

Hide doesn’t seem like he even noticed. “Anyway, we’re here so you can help me with these sentence imitations, so let’s talk about hair later.” Hide reaches down and unzips his backpack, pulling out a stack of notes and dropping it obnoxiously on the table.

The entire time, Kaneki can’t even focus.

It’s just, Hide’s hair looks so _good_ and Hide thinks his hair is _pretty_ and it’s just hard to think about anything else besides that. The black compliments his face so well, Kaneki was so used to the blond he began forgetting it wasn’t natural about 5 years ago. He keeps sneaking glances at the pretty locks when Hide leans down to write his notes, the strands falling out of place slightly with the movement and Kaneki wants to fix them for him.

To make it worse, Hide put on _glasses_ . He’s seen him with glasses before, but never with black hair and it’s just a big deal, okay. Hide subconsciously pushes his hair to the side and starts tapping his pen around his lips _god_ and _wait his lips are moving—_

“So do I use the same preposition for both phrases or can I switch them?”

Oh right, Kaneki was supposed to be helping him.

“Uh,” Kaneki stutters, rubbing at his chin nervously and he has to think for a minute about what to say when any other time he would have known immediately. He doesn’t even remember the sentence. “Both - I mean, you keep both prepositions the same.” He explains eventually, rushed.

Hide takes the pen away from his face, looking at him with a raised eyebrow, his expression translating to: ‘ _you okay?’_ Kaneki waves him off and takes a long drink from his coffee, which was now cold and gross. Hide goes back to scribbling away – and his handwriting is pretty; print mixing into cursive which is really alluring since Kaneki has too much free-time and knows from ‘What Does Your ___ Say About You” quizzes that by the way he connects the letters that he is a logical, systematic, and careful decision making person.

“That was the last one, thank God,” Hide sighs, stacking his papers together, “And thank you for helping me. Do you wanna go back to my place? I bought a Christmas tree and I need help setting it up.” The brunette grins and Kaneki can’t believe he probably wasted a whole paycheck on that when he could have just gotten, like, a miniature plastic tree.

 

“Yeah.” Kaneki nods, maybe a little too enthusiastically. He hasn’t really done anything Christmassy in a long time. Hasn’t had the money for a tree or anything - he barely has money for gas anymore with the way tuition is eating up his bills. Honestly, he doesn’t know if he’s even a Christmas person anymore, but he wants to see Hide more, so.

  
  
  


“Just -” Hide grunts, lifting one section of the tree above where Kaneki’s holding the base in place on the floor, watching him struggle, “Damn, I should hit the gym more.”

 

The thought of Hide with sweat glistening his arms, face twisted in concentration as he lifts weights with his muscles flexing, bulging - dark hair hanging in his face, almost has Kaneki letting the base slip out of place. He’s nearly sweating just _thinking_ about it.

 

A few moments later, the two parts of the tree slide in together and Kaneki lets go when Hide tells him to. It’s pretty big for Hide’s small apartment, but it really made it much more warm and inviting.

 

“It’s pretty,” Kaneki comments, “Do you have ornaments?”

 

“Yeah. I took some boxes from my dad’s house.” Hide goes off to retrieve the boxes, Kaneki guesses. He slouches down on Hide’s couch, trying to stop thinking for a minute.

 

However, he can’t, since Hide returns not even a minute later, hauling a tub across his living room and setting it on the floor. He pushes his dark hair back before opening the tub, examining the ornaments on the top of the box.

 

“There’s a bunch in here. C’mon, you aren’t tired, are you?” Hide pouts when he notices his friend on the couch. He takes off one of his socks and chucks it at Kaneki.

 

“Hide!” Kaneki whines, picking the sock off of him and tossing it back. He gets up and peers inside the tub, suspects there must be hundreds of ornaments in it.

 

“This one,” Hide picks up one that looks pretty lousy; a paper cutout of an ornament with stickers and marker designs, topped off with a school picture, “I made it in third grade, and it’s lasted this long! My hair’s even the same now.” He smiles a little at the nostalgia and so does Kaneki, before hanging it on the tree.

 

“You get the back, I’ll decorate the front.” Hide tells him and Kaneki nods, picking out the ones he suspected Hide wouldn’t want in front and hanging them up.

 

They talk about nothing for a while, just to pass time while they decorate. Hide eventually put Christmas music on and Kaneki couldn’t stifle his laughs at the brunettes faux-passionate singing.

 

He’s laughing so hard at Hide’s impromptu Christmas dance that he ends up dropping an ornament, chuckles cut short. “Oh…”

 

Hide hears the shatter and peers over. Shards are scattered everywhere in his carpet.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Kaneki flushes deep in embarrassment, “I’ll clean it up.” He crouches down swiftly and starts picking the pieces up.

 

“No, no, wait. Let me get a vacuum -”

 

Kaneki let out a quick breath when one of the shards sliced across his palm, not really sure how he even managed to do it. Great, now Hide’s carpet is going to be bloody too. “Shit.”

 

“I told you to wait!” Hide strides over and holds out his hand for the glass collected in Kaneki’s bloody palm. Kaneki hesitates before handing them over, and Hide gestures for him to follow him to the bathroom after he had dumped the glass in the garbage.

 

“Sorry.” Kaneki murmurs, going over to the sink and trying to wash the blood away. It stung, and he couldn’t help but hiss over it.

 

“It’s fine, just an ornament.” Hide shrugs and Kaneki looks at him in disbelief. How was he not irritated? Now he had to vacuum it all to make sure no one else got hurt, because of him.

 

“Let me see.” Hide grabs for Kaneki’s wrist, and he lets him look over the still bleeding, raw wound.

 

“Yikes,” Hide makes a face. He keeps ahold of Kaneki’s wrist while he rummages around his cabinets for a towel. Once he finds one he lays it in his friends palm before pressing down and making Kaneki keep it down while he searched for an antiseptic and wraps.

 

When he comes back Kaneki just lets him do whatever, biting his lip when Hide puts his hand under the faucet again. Once the brunette feels it’s thoroughly cleaned, he begins putting the antiseptic on it, which also really stings. Kaneki is confused, really, why this is happening so calmly. Hide isn’t even saying anything, just working on treating his wound. Kaneki fights a blush when he realizes this and stares down at the ground.

 

Hide wraps his hand and taps it to make sure it’s secure, before releasing Kaneki’s wrist.

 

“Thanks.” Kaneki mumbles, looking over his wrapped hand.

 

“No problem. It looked pretty bad, but that was just because of the blood. It looks like it should be fine now.” Hide shrugs and goes to put everything away.

 

“I can do that, it’s my fault anyway.” Kaneki offers, slapping Hide’s hands away so he can do it himself.

 

“You’re hurt,” Hide states matter-of-factly, “It’s fine. You can watch TV if you want, I’ll be right there.”

 

Kaneki wants to protest, but he ends up retreating back to the living room anyway. Once he’s plopped down onto the plush cushions, he examines his wrapped hand again. The blood was fairly easy to stop, so he believes what Hide said about it not being that bad. He’d have to be careful as to not make it worse. His eyes drift over to the shattered ornament near the tree and he sighs, still disappointed at himself for ruining what could have been a cute memory.

 

He hears Hide’s footsteps enter the room and can’t find it in himself to turn around. All he wanted was to admire Hide’s new hair and how cute he looked, really, and now he’s probably pissed and annoyed at him for breaking what might have been a really important ornament and he’s just not saying anything about it and maybe Kaneki should just leave-

 

“Are you crying? Dude, I swear it’s not that bad.”

 

Kaneki starts, whipping a hand up to his face and feeling his wet cheeks. _Oh no_.

 

“Sorry!” Kaneki dares to glance at his friend, seeing the concern fill his eyes and Kaneki’s face crumples again. He rests his elbows on his thighs and hides his face in his hands, trying to ignore how much he must look like an idiot. “I’m really sorry.”

 

“Hey,” Kaneki feels the couch sink next to him and Hide’s warm hand finds it’s way on his back, rubbing slow circles, “What’s wrong? Don’t worry about the ornament, I can clean it up.”

 

Kaneki wants to shudder under the genuine gesture, because it feels like something only _couples_ would do and of course Hide doesn’t like him like that. Not when he’s a boring book-nerd and breaks his ornaments and randomly starts crying on his couch with no explanation.

 

“You,” Oh, fuck it, “I like you.” Kaneki forces his hands off his red face, staring straight at his lap.

 

“Actually, I love you. It’s okay if you don’t like me. But I wanted to tell you.” Kaneki mumbles through his mortification. Hide isn’t saying anything and he doesn’t know how to digest that without crying even more, so he starts getting up.

 

Hide’s fingers gently catching his wrist startle him.

 

“No, I…” He starts off slowly, “Look at me, Kaneki.”

 

He doesn’t really want to, since he’s been crying and all, but he sinks back into the couch and turns to look at Hide.

 

“I love you too. I have for a while now actually… since high school.” Hide admits, sheepishly. Kaneki notices his face start to flush. What was this, a grade school confession?

 

“When you hurt your hand, I got really scared when I saw all the blood. So, I’m sorry if I was too forward with it. I was worried more about you than the mess.” Hide is still holding onto his wrist, loosely, so Kaneki could get out of it if he wanted.

 

“Since high school?” Is all Kaneki says. He’s searching Hide’s eyes desperately for a lie.

 

“Yeah.” Hide breathes, and Kaneki feels the minty air brush against his fringe a little - when did they get so close?

 

Kaneki says nothing else. Instead, he takes the opportunity and kisses him.

 

Hide responds almost instantly, his hand letting go of his wrist and instead resting against the back of his neck, keeping him close. Kaneki’s uninjured hand goes up to the other’s hair, wanting to brush out the soft, silky strands with his fingers.

 

They break away for air a couple moments later, and Hide’s forehead drops onto his shoulder, his arm snaking completely around Kaneki’s back.

 

“And you look really hot with brown hair.”

  
Hide starts laughing, then. Kaneki tries not to get embarrassed again, he just got to kiss Hide so it’s not too hard to keep other feelings other than bliss out of his mind. He goes back to playing with Hide’s hair again. They remain on the couch, Hide humming along to the Christmas music that still played from his speakers.


End file.
